French & English

There seems to be a contradiction in the English character on this very important subject, for the English are at the same time one of the hardiest peoples in the world and quite the most self-indulgent up to that point which is defined by the national word “comfort.”

By “comfort” an Englishman understands perfect physical ease and something more. The state of perfect comfort is partly ideal. Tapestry on a wall is comfortable, yet we do not touch it, we do not wrap ourselves up in it. The mind is cognisant of its presence as a warm, soft tissue, and that is all. Carpets are a little nearer, physically, as we walk upon them; but nine-tenths of the comfort they give is also purely ideal, for it can matter very little to us that a whole floor should be clothed with a soft pile when we can get as much softness on bare boards by wearing slippers.

An Englishman’s passion for comfort is also closely connected with his love of despatch, and his ingenuity in devising little conveniences that diminish friction. In this ingenuity he has no rival, but it sometimes defeats itself by making the conveniences themselves an embarrassment.

This is one of those matters which exhibit in a striking light the powerlessness of education, as the English of the comfortable classes have received their highest teaching from Greek philosophers and Christian apostles, two classes of teachers who, both by example and precept, inculcated the value of self-denial and simplicity of life. We do not know very much of the life of Jesus, but the little that we do know is entirely in favour of the belief that it was almost destitute of physical comfort, and that he lived amongst a class of poor people to whom comfort was unknown. On one occasion, as we all remember, he expressly discouraged anxiety about eating and dress; and as for lodging, there is no evidence either that he had a dwelling of his own or that he ever intentionally sought the hospitality of the rich. The lives of Socrates and Epictetus show an equal indifference to comfort; Socrates lived just as it happened, caring only for the life of thought; Epictetus, in a passage of splendid eloquence, rejoiced in his mental freedom, and demonstrated that it was compatible with the hardest and barest life.[63]

The English answer to Epictetus would be that he lived in another age, that he was unmarried, and therefore had not to satisfy the claims of others, and finally, that he did nothing notable except philosophising. If a modern Englishman tried to live like Epictetus he would inflict a kind of social paralysis upon himself, he would deny himself his due share in English life. That is the great practical difficulty in the way of hard living and high thinking. It is well for the philosopher, but he cannot require the same austerity of his family and his guests. No individual Englishman is responsible for the national standard of comfort. It has grown as custom grows, and is now so firmly fixed that Wisdom herself has to submit to it.

There is even a marked difference of opinion between the present generation and that which has just passed away. I have known people, born at the close of the eighteenth century, who still retained an antique prejudice against self-indulgence. They still had the idea that there was something shameful in excessive comfort, that a certain discipline of hardness was necessary to manly dignity, and, in a minor degree, even to womanly. I have known an English gentleman of the old school, a vigorous and rich old man, who never would use a railway rug or a travelling cap; such things seemed to him concessions to the weakness of the age. At seventy, he would sit upright through a long railway journey, and he preferred second-class carriages, as being less luxurious. His sister belonged to the same school; she never would lean back in a chair, and she disliked lounging habits of all kinds, as being associated with the idea of laziness. People of that kind maintained a strict discipline over themselves; the body had to obey the will. I have since found the same stoicism in full strength amongst the French peasantry. If any of their class betray too much care for their own comfort the rest laugh at them. They are hard with themselves, too, on principle, though there is certainly now a tendency to admit comforts which were formerly unknown.

The idea that it is better not to be too comfortable is now, I believe, extinct in the richer classes in England. They have not become effeminate, but they think that it is well to accept all pleasant things in the right time and place. Why not be snug and warm in a railway carriage? Why not lounge in an easy-chair in the drawing-room? The effect of such indulgences has not been, hitherto, so softening as the austerity of a severer age apprehended. Extreme comfort, in an energetic race, produces healthy reactions. It leads directly to ennui, and ennui leads to a desire for a more active physical life. The age of the first-class carriage is also the age of the velocipede. The most comfortable classes in England are also the most addicted to field sports.

The truth is that the kinds of comfort most appreciated in England include several things which are very favourable to health, especially spacious habitations, pure air, plenty of water, thorough cleanliness, and good food. The increase of comfort has been accompanied by an increase of temperance. It has led to no serious evil, save one.

The one evil is the trying strain of expense to which an extremely high standard of living subjects all except the rich. It keeps all current expenses high, and therefore weighs pitilessly on those who must be refined and have not large independent means. A prudent young Englishman may well hesitate before he enters upon marriage with the prospect of a large house full of children and servants in which no shabbiness, bareness, or imperfection is to be tolerated. So far as pecuniary prudence is concerned, he would probably do better to fill a stable with fine horses. The Archbishop of Canterbury, whilst lamenting the early marriages of the improvident classes, has declared that the young men in the comfortable classes “are giving up the idea of marriage.” This is the visible result. There is another consequence not so visible to the world in the harassed lives of unnumbered heads of families, the men whose days and nights are a combination of bodily comfort with mental toil and anxiety, the men to whom physical hardship would come, if they could only have it, as a counter-irritant and relief.

There has been little about the French in this chapter, and what there is to say may be expressed in few words. They have not naturally a genius for comfort like the English. Their natural way of living is hard in poverty and luxurious in riches, austerity and luxury equally belonging to the French nature. Of comfort they know what they have imperfectly learned from their English neighbours. At Versailles, in the days of Louis XIV., there was dazzling splendour, but comfort was utterly unknown. Modern French country houses (I mean those built for rich people in the second half of the nineteenth century) are planned as intelligently as the English, but the older châteaux were incredibly rough and wanting in the most elementary arrangements. Even yet, in the old provincial towns, French people put up with lodgings so awkwardly planned that an Englishman would not rent them. New town houses are better contrived, but still deficient in space.

The question of expenditure is favourable to the French in this way, that they do without luxury more easily than the English do without comfort. The Frenchman in adversity falls back on the austere side of his nature; being both Sybarite and Spartan, he has the Spartan half of himself always ready for hard times. An impoverished French gentleman lodges in bare small rooms and lives principally on soup.[64] It is ten times harder for an Englishman to give up his spacious house with carpets on the floors.

The expenses of those who can afford to live largely are the same in both countries. Comfort, in the ideal English degree, is not less costly than luxury, though a careful analysis of details would prove that it is not precisely the same thing.